OT: Odd system folders!

[Baron Munchausen]

What a joke! No computer program more complicated than 'Hello world!' is completely secure. The point is that Firefox is vastly more secure (or less insecure if you want to put it that way) than Internet Explorer, which still has more unintended vulnerabilites (i.e. 'bugs') than Firefox and also intended vulnerabilities like 'Active-X' and god-knows-what-else that Microsoft thought would be 'kewl' to have but wasn't intended to be used on anything but closed Local Area Networks within corporations. When they had to play 'catchup' with everyone else and put Windows online, they didn't bother revamping the security. Only with Windows NT did they finally start to think about security.

[Azselendor]

It's the only part of this guy's thing I disagree with. FireFox is vastly superior to IE.

Besides, last time I checked, Mozilla wasn't coding backdoor programs into our computer programs for the NSA -- like Microsoft does!

[Atrocities]

Part of MS agreement with the US Government to avoid monopoly break up was the "secret" incorporation of back door access that only the US Government can utilize. I.E. they get a computer that is encrypted or protected and MS will break into if for them, or give them the tools and training to do it. The FBI has special tools that allow them to remotely access any computer on any network that is running any Microsoft OS product, such as XP. And now that the US Government is moving toward a "centralized" email hub shadow network, even our emails will not be safe from investigation. (this goes beyond what the NSA, and others now have.)

Also many people don't realize that their printers, Digital cameras, DV Cameras, and even your CD burner all encode the products they produce. Your printer prints all information about itself, and your PC on each and every peace of paper printed. The META data in Digital images gives all information about the camera and its settings at the time the image was taken. Your CD burner burns its serial number, and your PC information onto each disk you create.

They say this is to help prevent and reduce counterfeiting of money, movies, music, and documents, but it what it really is all about, is knowing who is doing what, when, and where.

I believe that we live in a free society about as much as I believe that IE is a better product than FF.

[Phoenix-D]

"Special tools" my ***. $10 gets you $0.01 that's been cracked by now.

AT, something about emails you should know: emails are about as secure as a postcard. They can potentially be read at any stop along the way, and there are usually dozens of stops.

That said, any attempt to isolate every email would die on the vine simply from the insane number of the things that gets sent every day.

[Fyron]

Atrocities said:
Your printer prints all information about itself, and your PC on each and every peace of paper printed.

bull. Your printer can print a diagnostic sheet with some info about itself, sure. But that is purely for your use in trouble-shooting. No consumer-level printer can possibly print secret information on every page, either with some sort of "invisible ink" or at tiny, tiny resolution such that you can't see it with the unaided eye. That would require massive engineering costs, making them impossible to sell in the low hundreds of dollars range.

The META data in Digital images gives all information about the camera and its settings at the time the image was taken.

Yes, it's called EXIF data. There is nothing unusual or scary about that, in any way. It is there to provide you, the photographer, with extra information about your photos. The entire process was designed and implemented openly, at consumer (mostly professional level, but still consumers) request. Maybe you should look up just what EXIF data is...

Your CD burner burns its serial number, and your PC information onto each disk you create.

I'd have to call bull again. MAYBE a drive serial number, but even that is unlikely. If drive manufacturers were to attempt this (or be forced by the government), there would be privacy related lawsuits about it. The ALCU, for one, would be all over it.

[Atrocities]

Imperator Fyron said:
Atrocities said:
Your printer prints all information about itself, and your PC on each and every peace of paper printed.

bull. Your printer can print a diagnostic sheet with some info about itself, sure. But that is purely for your use in trouble-shooting. No consumer-level printer can possibly print secret information on every page, either with some sort of "invisible ink" or at tiny, tiny resolution such that you can't see it with the unaided eye. That would require massive engineering costs, making them impossible to sell in the low hundreds of dollars range.

Your CD burner burns its serial number, and your PC information onto each disk you create.

I'd have to call bull again. MAYBE a drive serial number, but even that is unlikely. If drive manufacturers were to attempt this (or be forced by the government), there would be privacy related lawsuits about it. The ALCU, for one, would be all over it.

These are not "bull" as you so gently put it. In fact they are quite real. Your printer does indeed print information about itself and your PC on each page in the form of little yellow dots Here Is A Link. The Secret Service use special methods to view and read the dots. This was shown on a Discovery Channel show. Sorry don't recall the name of the program but I believe it was Secrets of the Secret Service or something like that. In fact all of the things I mentioned were shown on that show. Your CD burner does encode information about itself and your PC on EVERY DISK you burn.

As to the information contained in digital images, like you said this is nothing new. However, many people do not know about it. For Digital Video, every frame of video shot, 30 fps, it is time coded, and the image you see is actually smaller than what is really recorded. Most people don't know about this as it is really unimportant. However, if your on a tight shot of some person reading a statement, and all you see is their face, the FBI will see another 6 to 12 inches around them, and that could reveal a gun to the person head, or someone or something in the back ground that they can use. Also the camera records its serial number along with the time coding on to each frame of video.

Most people didn't believe that they could be tracked by using their cell phones five years ago. I recall someone telling me that I was full of "bull" back then.

[Sivran]

I know about printers. However -

and even your CD burner all encode the products they produce.

Cite sources.

CD-R/DVD-R media is detectable not because of some secret data being written to the disc, but because of the very nature of the media. Dye-based recordable media is different from "pressed" manufactured media and is detectable as such.

http://www.advance.mb.ca/hiworks/cd_r.htm
http://www.megalodon.com/disc-manufacturing.html
http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq02.html#S2-4

[Atrocities]

The way it was described on the show left the impression that it was putting the information onto the disk without the knowledge of the PC operator. That this information was considered "secret" and quite detailed. Until I watch the show on on the Discovery Channel, I did not know that every disk I burned had this information on it. The CD-Rom serial number, my PC information, and the date and time it was burned all encoded without me ever knowing it.

Now that I do know about it, I want to be able to turn it off. While there are advantages to this technology, I.E. to prove that whatever data is on the disk is yours, it also can be misused horribly. So the option to have the feature turned on or off is something that I would be very interested in.

[Fyron]

*shakes head*

The discovery channel runs a lot of garbage conspiracy theory stuff, you know... You aren't supposed to believe it as real.

[Baron Munchausen]

Sivran said:
I know about printers. However -

Cite sources.

CD-R/DVD-R media is detectable not because of some secret data being written to the disc, but because of the very nature of the media. Dye-based recordable media is different from "pressed" manufactured media and is detectable as such.

http://www.advance.mb.ca/hiworks/cd_r.htm
http://www.megalodon.com/disc-manufacturing.html
http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq02.html#S2-4

There is a serial number created for every burned CD, but I haven't seen any information that it is either unique or traceable to the creating machine. If this turns out to be true, I'd say the RIAA/MPAA are more likely culprits than the government for getting the hardware and software producers to do this. Since they are pushing for legislation to add all sorts of DRM junk to our systems, the industry might be trying to work out a 'better deal' with them so they will drop efforts to make the more expensive and difficult enforcement into law.